in the valley of the shadow
by ncfan
Summary: Kyouko, and God.


I own nothing.

* * *

It's sleeping under the overpass again tonight. The rain's too hard for the forest and the homeless shelter where she used to stay nights has started to ask questions that Kyouko doesn't want to answer. There are no other options; once, once just a few months ago there was a place she could have gone, no questions asked, but no more. Other girls would be more concerned if they learned that they'd have to sleep near at the edge of a highway with any number of other homeless people, but Kyouko's been doing this (_and her other lifestyle_) for long enough that she's not bothered by the prospect of it. No one can hurt her.

_They'd better not try to take my food again, _she thinks to herself moodily, trudging alongside the road through the rain, her duffel bag slung over one shoulder and hands clutching at her front to keep her jacket shut. She has food enough for the next five days stored in her bag (_Is it all sealed right? Will it all be alright from the rain? _she asks herself suddenly; Kyouko remembers, with relief, that all of the food she's got right now is plastic-wrapped, not paper-wrapped).

It occurs to Kyouko that she doesn't care nearly as much about someone stealing her extra clothes as she does her food. _Damn right I don't. I won't need those clothes until it starts to get cold. I can always grab more before it gets cold._

Huffing and puffing, cold and soaked to the tips of her extremities (the hands clutching her jacket shut are spared to push hair out of her eyes, but she still has errant red locks plastered to her cheeks), Kyouko comes within sight of the overpass when she stops dead in her tracks. A familiar white van is parked near the overpass, and familiar men and women in matching t-shirts are standing under said overpass, talking up the homeless.

Her plans abandoned, Kyouko turns on her heel. Damn the rain. She'll sleep somewhere else tonight.

It was inevitable, she supposes, that after her father's church was gone, another would spring up to take its place, all the while doing its very best to eradicate all traces that the Sakura church and its devotees ever existed. _Heal the wounds_, they said. _Bring the people back to the _true _word of God, _they said. With one hand they help the repentant heretics up; with the other they keep them at arm's length, ostracize them, never let them get too close. It as though they feel like heresy will catch.

Kyouko knows that she, the daughter of the great heretic himself, would never be welcome there. They would say they accepted her. They would say she was welcome there. But they would never forget who her father was. They would never let her forget. She would be followed by whispers wherever she went.

"_You know who her father was?"_

"_Yes, _that _man."_

"_The heretic."_

"_The murderer."_

"_The suicide."_

(Kyouko imagines herself clenching her fists. No, wait. She doesn't have to imagine it.)

People are like that, even when they try to be righteous.

And even if Kyouko could be guaranteed genuine acceptance, she still wouldn't go with them.

As she walks back down the road, a car goes sailing past. A great wave of water, black and murky in the dim evening light, comes up and crashes against Kyouko's skin, soaking her even worse than the rain had already done. "You bastard!" she screams at the driver of the car zooming out of sight, who can't hear her and probably wouldn't care even if he could. After standing stock-still for a moment, somehow managing to shiver and fume at the same time, she keeps on walking. Standing in the rain isn't going to carry her to shelter.

Memories surface before Kyouko's eyes suddenly, too-bright and stinging. When she would go to pick up Momo after school, they'd walk home on this road. Momo would giggle and skip on ahead despite Kyouko telling her not to. _"Don't get so far ahead of me, Momo! It's not safe here!" _Momo never listened. Howling with laughter, she'd break into a dead run. _"Catch Momo! Catch Momo, neechan!" _Then, they'd race each other home, only to have their father laugh at their flushed, smiling faces. "_Today was a good day, then?" _And Mom would…

Kyouko squeezes her eyes shut, and tries not to think about it. But she can't block it out.

Mom would smile, give them both an apple and tell them to settle down and do their homework.

Back when she still went to school. Back when she still had a home to run back to and a sister to run with. Back when she had parents who would greet her at the door. Back when her life didn't consist of: _steal food, sleep in a different place every night, farm Familiars, kill Witches for their Grief Seeds, rinse and repeat. _Back when the sun still shone on her.

Daddy always said that all the troubles in all the world can be alleviated by faith in God. That faith in their loving God might not make their worries and struggles go away, but that faith would make them easier to live with.

"_Faith will give you the strength you need to live through your darkest days. Faith will let you see the sun even in those days. At least then, you'll be able to see that these days don't last forever."_

Some advice.

Kyouko has been living in the dark for an eternity now. She can't see the end of it. She certainly can't see the sun.

The one thing Kyouko has managed to take away from this, from her fall and the new church's rise, is that it's easy to be a good Christian when everything's going your way. When your life's coming up roses and the world seems just great, it's easy to be a Christian. You don't really have to think about it at all; you just assume that everything's going so great because God has smiled on you, and you're thankful, glad, and go on your way. You never really devote more thought to it than that.

But once God stops smiling, and starts testing you instead?

Then, it's not so clear anymore.

Sometimes, no, more like most of the time, Kyouko wishes she was like one of those people who didn't understand and could just blame God for all of their troubles. It must give them comfort, to be able to shift the blame to those all-knowing shoulders, to curse and rail against God. They must feel so much better, to be able to point heavenwards and shout _"It's not my fault!"_

Sadly, her eyes see better than theirs do. Kyouko knows that God gave man free will so that they wouldn't be able to blame Him for their troubles. If anyone brought her family down, it was her. Not God. If anyone is responsible for her homelessness, her lack of family, her solitude, the fact that she's walking alone in the dark and the rain with all the possessions she has in the world slung over her shoulder, it's her. God didn't do this. Only her.

And it's so, so much harder to do anything but fall into apathy and cynicism, when you know that all of your suffering is your own fault.

The street lamps flicker, and Kyouko doesn't notice when she's long since passed away from any place that would have street lamps, or windows with warm light glowing inside. Her feet move automatically. The wetness on her face is something that she doesn't even notice anymore, even when the taste of rainwater and salt commingles in her mouth.

When she started out, a fresh, new Puella Magi, Kyouko fancied herself Deborah. Deborah was her favorite woman in the bible, from her favorite part of the bible—all the military campaigns, all the blood and gore and murder, and pagan queens getting eaten by dogs; what's not to like? Deborah had led her people to victory. Deborah had been a leader, despite being a woman; her own general wouldn't go into battle without her! To Kyouko, she seemed much more like someone she wanted to emulate, instead of Ruth or Esther or Mary.

Now, Kyouko feels more like Job. Stripped of prosperity, of home, of family. Abused, abandoned, broken. But at least Job had the assurance that he was only being tested, that he was a righteous man who had done nothing to deserve this, that he was being tested by Satan. At least he could hear God's voice.

When Kyouko tries to listen for God, all she hears is silence.

She still prays sometimes. Kyouko prays for good luck in finding food, that there will still be Witches to kill (_Praying for Familiars to farm tends to get stuck in her throat; Kyouko can't quite bring herself to pray to God for good luck in killing others, even if those others don't give a damn about her_). When she was a child, she prayed with far more fervor than she does now, her weak, half-hearted attempts to talk to God that start with _Please _and end with _I know you're probably not listening. I know you probably don't care. But please, help me. Just this once._

Kyouko doesn't feel any different when she stops praying. She still feels desperation curling in her gut. She still feels hunger aching in her bones. She still feels every gust of wind cutting through her too-thin, indigent flesh.

She used to think God was listening.

She doesn't anymore.

Boots crunch on broken glass before Kyouko realizes where her feet have carried her. She looks around, at the overturned benches, at the smashed windows, and at the eerie multi-colored light filtering dully through glass still clinging to the window frames, and realizes where she is.

The Sakura church.

Her old home.

The monument to her great sin.

A lump rises in her throat, and Kyouko quells it viciously. She stands within a ruined shell of what once was a thing of beauty, motionless, drinking in the silence that exists in between patches of empty sky and rain. Pillars of rain are interspersed among the sanctuary hall, sneaking through the holes in the sealing.

She had broken the faith of many that day, when the truth was learned. After her father… _Memories of the sea of blood unfurling on the kitchen floor, the burning pain in her chest from the biggest kitchen knife he could find and that sound, that horrible snapping sound. _After her father had died, it had been like a veil was lifted from the eyes of the followers her magic had called. Cheated and furious, waves of disillusioned believers fell upon the Sakura church, determined to rip it to the foundations. What once was sacred was now profane. Benches were overturned, windows broken, the altar defiled. The only thing that stopped them burning the church to the ground was the arrival of the police.

"Well… I'm back."

No one answers her.

No one ever does.

_It's just for tonight. _Kyouko goes to a dark, shadowy corner, sweeping away glass and leaves and other debris with her foot. She drops her duffel bag to the floor, intending to use it, however wet it is, for a pillow.

(She won't sleep in her old room. There's nothing there anymore, anyways. The rooms have all been ransacked; anything of remote value has been carried off by looters. The night it all came crashing down, people came and burned the beds.)

(She won't sleep in the kitchen. The last time Kyouko went in there, there was still a rust-colored stain on the floor the size of a grown man.

She had barely been able to flee the church before she was sick in the bushes outside.)

Weary, stiff and aching, she drops to the floor.

_Please God, give me a happy dream._

All she hears in return is the rain.


End file.
